Follow the User?!

Data Donation Studies for Collecting Digital Trace Data

Session 2️⃣: Data Donation Studies (Participant Perspective)

Frieder Rodewald (University of Mannheim) & Valerie Hase (LMU Munich)

👉 Part of the SPP DFG Project Integrating Data Donations in Survey Infrastructure

Agenda

  1. What are data donation studies?

  2. Participant perspective, including

    2.1 📢 Task 1: Inspect your DDPs

    2.2 📢 Task 2: Try donating your data

Image by Hope House Press via Unsplash

1) What are data donation studies?

image of lupe

Source: Image by Markus Winkler via Unsplash

Please raise your hand ✋ : Who has ever tried to request their data from an online platform? 🤔

What are data donation studies?

Definition 💡: Data donation studies are a user-centric method for collecting digital traces:

  • Users have the right to request, access, and download data that platforms collect about them.
  • They can make their data packages (DDPs) available to science via data donation tools (DDTs), often in the context of surveys.
  • Researchers use CSS methods to filter, anonymize, and aggregate this data locally on participants’ devices before any data is sent to researchers.

Which types of data do DDPs contain?

For platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, for example… (Hase et al., 2024)

  • User profiles (e.g., privacy settings)
  • Activities (e.g., friends, likes, searches, exposure, analog movements)
  • Content and context (e.g., ads watched, algorithmically inferred interests)

How is data from DDPs different?

Compared to APIs (Haim & Hase, 2023; Ohme et al., 2024)…

  • Control & informed consent of users
  • Longitudinal data without “rate limits”
  • Partly additional measurements (e.g., exposure data; non-public data)

How is data from DDPs different?

Compared to tracking (Haim & Hase, 2023; Ohme et al., 2024)…

  • Retrospective & often more longitudinal
  • Partly additional measurements (e.g., algorithmic inferences)
  • Anchored in current provisions in law (for issues with tracking, see Edelson & McCoy, 2021)

👉 but similarly burdensome for participants!

Summary: What are data donation studies? 📚

  • Summary: User-centric method for collecting digital traces: Users download their data packages (DDPs) from platforms and make them available to science via data donation tools (DDTs).

  • Further literature:

    • Boeschoten et al. (2022)
    • Carrière et al. (2024)

2) Participant perspective

image of lupe

Source: Image by Markus Winkler via Unsplash

Data donation studies - participant perspective

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step I: Data request

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step I: Data request

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step I: Data request

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

How easy (or hard) did you find it to request your data? Did you encounter any obstacles? 🤔

Step I: Data request

Different degrees in standardization for data requests (Hase et al., 2024)…

  • Verification procedure
  • Specification of data (metrics, observation period)
  • Notification on provision of DDP
  • Duration of DDP availability

Step II: Download

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step II: Download

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

📢 Task 1: Inspect your DDPs.

Which variables can you identify? How could you use these for research in your field?

Feel free to work in groups of 2-3 people.

Step II: Download

Different degrees in standardization for DDP content (Hase et al., 2024)…

  • Documentation

    • DDP structure?
    • Measurements?

  • Completeness & scope

    • Missing data?
    • Limited time frames?

Step III: Data donation

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step III: Data donation

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step III: Data donation

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

Step III: Data donation

process of data donation study

Figure. Data donation study - participant perspective

📢 Task 2: Try donating your data.

Upload and inspect your data. Did you encounter any difficulties in sharing your data?

Feel free to work in groups of 2-3 people.

Bias in Data Donation Studies

Similar to tracking studies, data donation characterized by (Hase et al., 2024; Hase & Haim, 2024; Keusch et al., 2024):

  • Errors in representation (coverage error, non-response error)
  • Measurement errors (Missing data, Specification error)

👉 Not necessarily less biased than survey data - but subject to different bias?

👉 We will talk about this in Session 4️⃣.

Summary: Participant perspective 📚

  • Summary: Key steps from the participant perspective …

    1. Data request
    2. Data download
    3. Data donation

  • Further literature:

    • Boeschoten et al. (2022)
    • Carrière et al. (2024)

Questions? 🤔

References

Data Donation Studies - COMPTEXT - Frieder Rodewald, Valerie Hase

Boeschoten, L., Mendrik, A., Van Der Veen, E., Vloothuis, J., Hu, H., Voorvaart, R., & Oberski, D. L. (2022). Privacy-preserving local analysis of digital trace data: A proof-of-concept. Patterns, 3(3), 100444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2022.100444
Carrière, T. C., Boeschoten, L., Struminskaya, B., Janssen, H. L., De Schipper, N. C., & Araujo, T. (2024). Best practices for studies using digital data donation. Quality & Quantity. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-024-01983-x
Edelson, L., & McCoy, D. (2021). Facebook is obstructing our work on disinformation. Other researchers could be next. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/aug/14/facebook-research-disinformation-politics
Haim, M., & Hase, V. (2023). Computational Methods und Tools für die Erhebung und Auswertung von Social-Media-Daten. In S. Stollfuß, L. Niebling, & F. Raczkowski (Eds.), Handbuch Digitale Medien und Methoden (pp. 1–20). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-658-36629-2_41-1
Hase, V., Ausloos, J., Boeschoten, L., Pfiffner, N., Janssen, H., Araujo, T., Carrière, T., De Vreese, C., Haßler, J., Loecherbach, F., Kmetty, Z., Möller, J., Ohme, J., Schmidbauer, E., Struminskaya, B., Trilling, D., Welbers, K., & Haim, M. (2024). Fulfilling Data Access Obligations: How Could (and Should) Platforms Facilitate Data Donation Studies? Internet Policy Review, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.14763/2024.3.1793
Hase, V., & Haim, M. (2024). Can We Get Rid of Bias? Mitigating Systematic Error in Data Donation Studies through Survey Design Strategies. Computational Communication Research, 6(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.5117/CCR2024.2.2.HASE
Keusch, F., Pankowska, P. K., Cernat, A., & Bach, R. L. (2024). Do You Have Two Minutes to Talk about Your Data? Willingness to Participate and Nonparticipation Bias in Facebook Data Donation. Field Methods, 36(4), 279–293. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X231225907
Ohme, J., Araujo, T., Boeschoten, L., Freelon, D., Ram, N., Reeves, B. B., & Robinson, T. N. (2024). Digital Trace Data Collection for Social Media Effects Research: APIs, Data Donation, and (Screen) Tracking. Communication Methods and Measures, 18(2), 124–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2023.2181319